Rope
by gertiedog
Summary: Sam looks for hope in Mordor--vignette


Rope  
  
The smooth coil slid through Sam's rough fingers like quicksilver, unsullied by the grime on the gardener's hands. He had only a moment to sort through their belongings; the final leg of their journey to Mt. Doom was upon them, and Fodo was fading fast. They had just enough food and water to make it to the mountain; beyond that, Sam couldn't see how they would survive. He began to understand his master's mutterings about the end as more than just the darkness of the ring influencing his mind. Sam sighed, and returned his attention to the elven rope.  
  
After that brief glimpse of starlight, one, two days ago now? Or was it longer? The darkness had returned, infusing the air with a stifling heaviness that nevertheless held the bitter cold of deep winter. It burned in Sam's lungs and parched his body, stinging his eyes and turning the world to an indistinct blur of grey on black and black on midnight. No amount of rubbing or blinking could return moisture to his eyes or relieve the tricks they played on him--bits of landscape seeming to move with them, slinking and hiding too quick to be caught when Sam whipped around to face them. "'Course it could be that stinker still about," Sam muttered, clutching the rope until his knuckles whitened, lost in a memory of Gollum tethered by one ankle, whining and pleading with Frodo. "And even then, planning his tricks with that foul creature." The memory shifted, to Frodo lying motionless outside the tunnel as Sam's mind filled with panic and despair, and then with rage.   
  
"Sam?" Frodo's voice, a dry whisper, brought Sam up sharp. He blew out a breath, noticing the rope wrapped tightly around the tops of his knuckles and pulled taut between his hands: a garrotte, stealthy vengeance. It seemed in Mordor everything began to have a dark life of its own, even hands and elven ropes. Shaking his head, Sam sought to replace the remembered image of Frodo with the one before him, but the new vision was no less painful. Wasted, drawn and heavy with fear and hopelessness, Frodo seemed diminished almost beyond recovery. The light of kindness and hope that Sam remembered seeing in Frodo's eyes was gone now, too, leaving them dull, ringed with shadow and reflecting only the filth of Mordor. If only Sam could get that light back, just for a moment...but it didn't bear thinking about. Not here. "No sense standing around here thinking 'bout what isn't, Samwise," he scolded himself silently, and hurried over to help Frodo don his elf cloak in place of the orc-gear.  
  
"Here you are, Mr. Frodo," Sam said, cutting off a piece of his rope to tie around his master's waist. The shortness of the rope needed for this task did not go unnoticed by the gardener, and he fussed over the girdle perhaps a little longer than was necessary, confirming with his hands the half-starved condition of the ringbearer. Finally satisfied that his master's attire was sufficiently sturdy and comfortable, Sam stepped back, and stooped to pick up the rest of his rope.  
  
A pale glimmer caught his eye as he stood. The simple rope girdle around Frodo's waist flickered briefly, reflecting light from a hidden source. Sam held his breath and stared at the rope, transfixed, waiting for the inevitable darkness to return. But it didn't happen immediately, and Sam became aware that he was frozen in an awkward position, half kneeling in front of his master, as if in supplication to the light. He pressed his hands together and stood up straight, catching Frodo's eyes as he did so.  
  
For a moment, the old light shone there, and Sam's heart filled with joy. He began to reach for Frodo, but the ringbearer had already turned his attention to the mountain before them. Sam glanced down at his outstretched arm, and saw the rope still held in his hand. A vision of the rope as a strand of light, connecting them to each other and to the world beyond the Shadow passed quickly before him, leaving Sam breathless and clutching the precious fibers. He carefully coiled the remaining rope and placed it in his pack, then shouldered his much lightened burden. He fancied that he felt the shift of the rope within his pack as he moved, sliding slightly back and forth. The motion, imagined or not, was comforting.  
  
"That day it seemed to Sam that his master had found some new strength, more than could be explained by the small lightening of the load that he had to carry." --JRRT, Return of the King, "Mount Doom" 


End file.
